Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to agricultural vehicles movable in a travel direction through a field of row-planted crops, and more particularly, to a tire guard for use with a ground-engaging wheel of an agricultural vehicle
Description of Related Art
The plants of certain row crops, such as corn, cotton and soybeans, for example, can branch out and block the aisles between the planted rows when fully matured. For some crops, spacing between rows may be about 15-30 inches, though wide variation is possible. When harvesting machinery enters the field, the vehicle (e.g., tractor, harvester, sprayer, etc.) proceeds with its wheels placed between the rows. However, the wheels of the vehicle can run over and crush the crop that extends into the aisles, resulting in significant crop loss.
Crop shields may be installed on the front side of machine tires to prevent the tires from running over and destroying dense crop growth. The crop shield separates rows of crops and allows each wheel of the machine to pass through the separated vegetation, thereby preventing the tires from becoming entangled with the crops.
Typically, a crop shield is an attachment for a wheel that is positioned at a front of a wheel (with respect to a travel direction of the vehicle) and includes a forward pointing configuration for lifting and turning aside stalks that have fallen or are inclined from the planted rows. Thus, the crops will not be run over by the vehicle wheel but instead will be pushed aside and lifted into position for cultivation, stalk cutting, harvesting, or other action. However, current crop shields are bulky, heavy and take many hours to install onto an agricultural implement.